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A recent report from the United States Government Accountability Office regarding the Department of Defense's operations at The Pentagon has shown that the nation's nuclear weapons program is still running on 1970s-era computer systems and via floppy disks.

As most in the information technology field know, floppy disks became obsolete in the late 1990s while compact discs (CDs) began to be widely used.

Specified in the report, "Agencies reported using several systems that have components that are, in some cases, at least 50 years old...[The] Department of Defense uses eight-inch floppy disks in a legacy system that coordinates the operational functions of the nation's nuclear forces...[The] Department of the Treasury uses assembly language code - a computer language initially used in the 1950s and typically tied to the hardware for which it was developed."

The GAO stated, as part of their investigation, that the U.S. government has spent more than $80 billion every fiscal year in the information technology department. The investigation also stated that the Pentagon's usage of floppy disks within its strategic automated command and control system that coordinates operational function of its nuclear forces, including intercontinental ballistic missiles, nuclear bombers and tanker support aircraft.

The Department says updates are in progress and should be fully updated by the end of 2017.

Microsoft boss Satya Nadella wants Windows 10 to be a unifying force across many different types of devices. (Image Credit: AP)

Microsoft announced that they will miss their target on getting the Windows 10 operating system running on more than one billion devices by 2018. In their statement, Microsoft states that problems with the smartphone business would delay the milestone, having struggled with finding a market for Windows phones when market share is dominated by Apple's iPhone and Google's Android platforms. Currently, Windows 10 is in active use on roughly 350 million separate devices at this time.

The following are examples on why Windows 10 is not doing so well up to this date:

Poor Sales

Windows 10 was released in July 2015 and was built to act as a unifying platform for PCs, tablets, smartphones, embedded systems and the Xbox One gaming console. Microsoft had set a target of one billion devices and/or users before the operating system was released.

However, their plans suffered a roadblock when they laid off 7,800 in their smartphone business division, writing off the entire value of $7.2 billion they paid to buy out Nokia's phone business in 2014. Earlier this month, the tech giant shut down their phone operations in Finland, with yet more staff layoffs.

Microsoft, when making their prediction on Windows 10 usage, they were hoping to sell 50 million Windows phones on an annual basis. However, sales figures from Kantar Worldpanel suggest that Windows phones only account for 1.6% of all phone sales in North America and 0.4% in China, which is a dismal showing given they are the two largest markets for smartphones.

'Aggressive' Tactics​

Microsoft focusing on their smartphone business would now mean it will take longer than their expected three years to hit the one billion figure.

They also expected adoption numbers to get a boost from businesses starting to use it and because it will be used on new devices Microsoft and its partners are planning. However, demand for Windows 10 looks set to slow in the near future due to declining sales of PCs and that the free OS upgrade ends on July 31. (Editor's Note: Thank goodness, because I'm tired of seeing that message show up on my clients' computers, forcing an update on them when they're barely even used Windows 8 or 8.1.)

There has been much reluctance across the four major sectors in the information technology sector (residential, commercial, educational and governmental), as most have proprietary software such as ADP and Quicken on their computers and are not equipped to operate on Windows 10. Residential customers are reluctant to install the update on their home computers due to the aggressive tactics Microsoft actively uses to force such an update.